THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA
www.cagreens.org
Tuesday, January 17 2006
Contact(s):
Sara Amir, 310.270-7106 saraamir@earthlink.net
Pat Driscoll 916.320-6430 pat@sonicfrog.com
Susan King 415.823-5524 funking@mindspring.com
SACRAMENTO (January 17, 2006) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian
citizenship should be revoked for permitting death penalty executions in
California, according to a formal request made by Green Party members of
the Austrian Parliament and supported by the International Protocol Committee of the Green Party of California late Monday.
The committee said the citizenship revocation should be considered because
Schwarzenegger refused to stop executions of Donald Beardslee, Stanley
Tookie Williams - and now Clarence Allen. Those actions "are illegal as an
activity of either the state or person in Austria."
"No Austrian citizen is legally permitted to participate in or order the
execution of another human being," said the Green Party committee, adding
that "Arnold Schwarzenegger (did) willfully and knowingly exercise his
official executive powers as Governor to permit the execution of the death
penalty against Donald Beardslee and Stanley Williams."
Green members of the Austrian Parliament are pushing for the citizenship
revocation.
"The Green Party is locally and internationally dedicated to values of
human life which oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle and
rejects the use of the death penalty as a policy of a modern and civilized
society," said Fred Hosea of the GPCA committee, quoting from the International Protocol Committee's official statement.
The committee added that not only does it support the proposed action in
the Austrian Parliament to revoke Schwarzenegger's citizenship, but also
supports "other pertinent and appropriate sanctions which the Austrian
Parliament may enact in this regard."
"As citizens of the State of California have a moral right and obligation
to act both locally and globally in the vigorous prosecution of illegal
conduct by all government officials, and in the criticism of official policy and conduct which offends
the principles for which we stand," said the formal statement by the GPCA International Protocol Committee
